Monday, January 23, 2012

vocation and avocation

It has been a year since I left my IT job. While my primary interest remains the environment space I am yet to find a full time "job" that fits the bill. Some of the organizations or individuals do it as a weekend activity since they are into regular jobs doing the weekdays. In some other cases their location or daily travel to the field can be a deterrent given my own constraints. Some are into deep research and hence I lack the credentials to contribute ... the list goes on.

I managed to do some teaching at an NGO for Master's degree students for a semester in two subjects - Project Management (given my IT background) and Sustainable Technologies (primarily due to my interest in this space). Apart from this my reading, gardening, thinking continue...

So in summary given my IT background there would be jobs available but I am not keen on them while the one the I am looking for in the Environment space may not be there / not available at this point!

In this context I am reminded of my favorite poet Robert Scott's poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time". I am reproducing the last two paragraphs which best explain my predicament. You can read the whole poem here.
....
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

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